Free Range Ticks

Jon took Eli backpacking up on the North Shore this past weekend for their annual father/son Superior Hiking Trail outing.  They experienced some fine weather, few bugs, and fewer people.  Had a delightful time.  The one drawback was that the tick population seemed to be at an all time high.  I think they said they pulled 36 off of themselves- only a few embedded, the rest free ranging over their clothes and bodies.  They came in the house after the drive home chuckling about the tick Eli had found on the way home and had flung in a panic.  They warned that it was somewhere in the car.  But then we found one on Eli's abdomen and called off the car warning.  The next day Jon proved that theory wrong when he plucked tick 37 from the ceiling of the car.  Tick 38 turned up (dead) in the dryer after a load of backpacking clothes came out.  That's too many for me.

What I find interesting about all this tick experience is that my gentle-souled Eli, who adheres to a strict catch and release policy when it comes to flies or spiders that venture into his domain, takes keen pleasure in taking a match to a tick.  Nothing he likes more than knowing that a tick is dead and gone, and fire is his assassination method of choice.  Not sure if I should be concerned about his or not....

Helping me get some perspective

This past Sunday Theo and I enjoyed a lovely visit to the St. Paul Farmer's Market.  Peapods, astonishingly beautiful lettuce (I've never thought of lettuce as good-looking before, but this stuff just is), jerky from the jerky lady, a few plants for the garden and some gifts for teachers.  But on the way home, when I stopped to by some more mulch, I pulled out $20 only to realize that it was stuck to another one (fresh from the ATM they were) and both myself and the cashier at the store barely realized it.  A quick perusal of my billfold found that this was not the first time that 20s had stuck together that morning.  I must have paid at least once with $40 and received change for $20.  Not that anyone was trying to cheat me, just those were some very sticky bills.  I was a bit put out about this until Theo piped up from the back seat with this:  "Well Mom, those farmers work so hard and make good stuff and no one ever tips them.  They deserve a real nice tip every now and then."  True.  Just kind of wish I could have been in charge of the size of my tip.  But it did make that pill go down a bit easier.
Later in the day Eli and I were standing on the deck looking at the garden when a chipmunk darted into the new corn seedling patch, dug up a plant and dashed away.  This brought our attention to the other missing seedlings and the neat little holes left by this chipmunk earlier.  I might have cursed, quietly of course.  Eli gave me an affectionate pat and said, "Well Mom, take a look at those perfect little holes already dug for whatever you might want to plant next."
Thanks guys.  Your bright side perspective is helpful.  But I might still invest in a BB gun to keep the chippies at bay.  I will not shoot to kill.  Just to scare.